AMD’s Ryzen 3 2200G and Ryzen 5 2400G processors reviewed

Morning, folks. Today is the day when we can finally share performance details for the desktop versions of AMD’s Ryzen processors with Radeon Vega graphics, or Ryzen APUs for short. AMD isn’t using the term “accelerated processing unit” to refer to these chips any longer, but it’s a whole lot easier to call them APUs than it is to type out “Ryzen processor with Radeon Vega graphics” every time we want to refer to the family of chips. Naming conventions aside, what matters most is that AMD finally has a competitive CPU core that it can fuse with its muscular graphics processors, and it’s used those resources to form a most exciting pair of chips for entry-level gaming builds, small-form-factor game boxes, and HTPCs.

I could regale you with a wealth of background information on the silicon marriage of a single Zen core complex and Vega graphics here, but I am out of time as of this very moment. Thing is, we pretty much know the deal with Raven Ridge. Check out my post about AMD’s pre-CES event for the ground rules of AMD’s desktop APUs, along with our review of the mobile Ryzen 5 2500U and my initial write-up of the Raven Ridge silicon from a while back for ample general information on the red team’s blend of its core competencies. At this stage, I felt it was most important to get our performance results out in the open rather than rehashing a great deal of already-public information. For the moment, enjoy our full test results and slightly-less-full analysis for these chips, and feel free to debate amongst yourselves in the comments.

Our testing methods

As always, we did our best to deliver clean benchmarking numbers. We ran each test at least three times and published the median of those results.

Our test systems were configured as follows:

Processor

Ryzen 3 2200G

Ryzen 5 2400G

Ryzen 3 1300X

Ryzen 5 1500X

CPU cooler

AMD Wraith (95W)

Motherboard

MSI B350I Pro AC

Chipset

AMD B350

Memory size

16 GB

Memory type

G.Skill Flare X 16 GB (2x 8GB) DDR4-3200

Memory speed

3200 MT/s (actual)

Memory timings

14-14-14-34 1T

System drive

Intel 750 Series 400GB

Processor

AMD Athlon X4 845

AMD A10-7850K

CPU cooler

AMD Wraith (95W)

Motherboard

Asus Crossblade Ranger

Chipset

AMD A88X

Memory size

16 GB

Memory type

Corsair Vengeance Pro Series 16 GB (2x 8 GB) DDR3-1866

Memory speed

1866 MT/s (actual)

Memory timings

9-10-9-27

System drive

Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB

Processor

Core i3-8100

(simulated via Core i5-6600K

at 3.6 GHz and 65 W)

Core i5-8400

CPU cooler

Cooler Master MasterAir Pro 3

Motherboard

Gigabyte Aorus Z270X-Gaming 8

Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7

Chipset

Intel Z270

Intel Z370

Memory size

16 GB

Memory type

G.Skill Trident Z 16 GB (2x 8 GB) DDR4-3200

Memory speed

DDR4-3200 (actual)

Memory timings

14-14-14-34 2T

System drive

Samsung 960 Pro 512 GB

We used the following system to host our discrete GPUs for testing:

Processor

Intel Core i7-8700K

CPU cooler

Corsair H110i 280-mm liquid cooler

Motherboard

Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7

Chipset

Intel Z370

Memory size

16 GB

Memory type

G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3200 (rated) SDRAM

Memory speed

3200 MT/s (actual)

Memory timings

14-14-14-34 2T

System drive

Samsung 960 Pro 512 GB

Some other notes regarding our testing methods:

Each motherboard was updated to the most recent firmware version available prior to testing, including pre-release firmware versions available through processor manufacturers.

Our Intel test systems were both updated with Meltdown mitigations through Windows Update and Spectre mitigations through firmware updates. These patches were confirmed to be in use through the InSpectre utility.

Each software utility or program used in our benchmarking was the most recent version publicly available prior to our testing period. Where necessary, we used beta versions of certain utilities as recommended by CPU manufacturers for the best compatibility with the systems under review.

Each system used Windows 10’s Balanced power plan. Our Ryzen systems were set up with AMD’s Ryzen Balanced power plan.

Unless otherwise noted, our gaming tests were conducted at 1600×900 in exclusive fullscreen mode. Vsync was disabled both in-game and in the graphics driver control panel where possible.

Our testing methods are generally publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions regarding our testing methods, you can email me, leave a comment on this article, or join us in our forums. We take the integrity of our test results seriously and will go to reasonable lengths to clear up any apparent anomalies.